Page 50 of When the Sky Breaks

“Answer.” I glared at Ansel, but the venom was receding.

“I’ll find us another option,” Ansel said. “You two go get some food and some sleep. I’ll meet you at that boardinghouse.”

He pointed at a dark blue building with tidy white trim and a long porch stretching across the front facade.

“Fine,” I muttered through gritted teeth, watching Ansel retreat into town.

“Listen,” Neal said gently, turning me to face him, “is this ideal? Absolutely not. But we’ve been through worse already—multiple times.”

“Neal, it’s too hot and this whole place smells,” I complained, burying my face in his chest, composure quickly dwindling.

“We will figure something out,” Neal assured me, fingers brushing under my chin to coax me into looking at him. “I promise. And in the meantime, we are going to get some dinner and—since we have a whole hotel room all to ourselves—we’re going to try a second attempt at our wedding night. Now that we’ve both decided . . .”

I glared, snorted. “Excuse me?”

“Okay now that I’ve finally admitted,” Neal corrected himself, “that I’m completely in love with you.”

“Food first,” I said, conceding, relaxing now, starting to smile a bit. “I’m hungry.”

“That’s progress,” Neal exclaimed.

“I also feel like I could throw up any second.” My brows knitted together. “But I’m starving.”

I looked down and cradled my growing belly. “Would you make up your mind about me eating already?”

“Nobody’s bothering us tonight. It’s just you, me, and a quiet room. I’ll make sure of it,” Neal promised, pulling me against his side and kissing my head, then bending down to kiss my lips. “And there will be plenty more where that comes from later.”

Fed and clean and settled into our rooms, I finally let myself fully relax. The hotel Ansel had seemingly arbitrarily selected was pleasant, luxurious even. Our room had a brazier for coals—though I couldn’t begin to fathom a situation where that might be necessary—a writing desk, a small settee, and a bed frame with a clearly expensive, tufted wool mattress on top. The sheets were clean and bleached and pressed. The windows were framed in heavy printed cotton curtains. After a life spent in timber-framed, adobe-brick ranches with simple shutters and hand-woven linens, I felt like I’d stepped into a fancy postcard from back east. I’d tucked Milkweed into the flowerbox outside the window to sleep, under detailed instructions not to try and hop off overnight.

We stayed up far too late talking before Neal even hinted at a second attempt at our egregiously awful wedding night.

“I know this hasn’t been easy,” Neal said as I curled up next to him on the sofa, “but eventually, years or maybe decades from now, I think we might just look back on it fondly. Or at the very least want to tell this one about it.”

His hand ghosted over my growing belly.

“So,” Neal said, fishing in his pockets, “I got them something. Got you something? I got something. I know it’s not much. But it’s sturdy for travel, and I figured they can play with it even when they’re really little.”

I sat up and took the tiny paper-wrapped parcel from his hands, unwrapping it to reveal a small carved wooden mule. My heart clenched in my chest. After all that shit when we first got married, how could he truly be this sweet? I didn’t let the dissonance bother me for long.

“Thank you,” I said, climbing into his lap. “For everything. You were supposed to work for my dad. You didn’t sign up for this. You could have taken an easier posting.”

“But I didn’t take an easier posting, Sorcha,” he said. “And I don’t regret it. Because as hard as I tried to convince myself otherwise, that first day I met you I knew that this, that we, were supposed to happen. I wouldn’t trade you and what we have for anything.”

Emboldened—both by his earnestness and by the privacy of four walls and a room to ourselves—I leaned in and kissed him. Neal’s hands slid around my waist and he began to unfasten the buttons on the back of my dress, quickly discarding it before starting to unfasten the busk of my corset, still kissing my lips, my temples, my neck. I bit back a moan, heat flooding through me. That felt far too good.

“You alright?” Neal asked, pulling away for a moment. “Not too nauseous? Not too dizzy? I don’t want to make you feel worse.”

“A little nauseous, a little dizzy,” I admitted, pressing my forehead against his. “And definitely too hot. But I’m pretty sure this’ll be worth it.”

I leaned in and kissed him again. And for a moment the sheer closeness, his hands on my back and his lips against mine, made me forget the discomfort, the Texas heat, this awful trip we’d been forced to undertake. And for a moment it was just us—together, happy, married, pregnant—everything we should have a chance to enjoy.

“Did it hurt this time?” Neal asked as I lay curled up on his bare chest, fingers tracing along his collarbone. I just shook my head and sighed contentedly. The quiet voice at the back of my mind, that had mourned the missed opportunity the night we’d conceived the baby, was silent now. Sated.

“You were holding out on me,” I chuckled. “I don’t know what I expected, but nothing that good.”

Neal laughed and kissed my forehead. He pulled me closer, and I mused aimlessly how much I wished it could stay like this. The two of us. No outside political pressures. No travel. A house somewhere. Assurance of a good healer when I was due to have the baby. It all felt so completely impossible, at least with Iksura vying for the Outer Court throne—willing to resort to violence to get it—and the threat of the portals and the cults growing by the day.

“It’s like I almost forgot where we were,” I murmured into his chest, “about the chaos outside. About how awful this town is. I felt safe. Really safe. For the first time in a while.”